INDIGENOUS PEOPLES. The traveling selection becomes a centerpiece of the Enfoto 2025 Photography Encounter at the Diego Rivera venue.
A selection of 43 photographs by ethnologist Martín Gusinde, documenting the Selk’nam, Yámana, and Kawesqar peoples between 1918 and 1924, is on display at the Casa del Arte Diego Rivera in Puerto Montt. The exhibition, titled “Voices of Patagonia. Ancestral Memory,” will be open to the public until September 17 as part of the Enfoto 2025 Los Lagos Photography Encounter.
The exhibition proposes a reinterpretation of the portraits made by the priest in the early 20th century, depicting the everyday and symbolic life of the Indigenous peoples of the far south of Chile and Argentina. The complete visual archive, consisting of 151 photographs, was acquired in 2019 by Francisca Cortés Solari through an agreement with French publisher Xavier Barral, who held the reproduction rights.
The contract allowed one of the 12 certified editions of the photographic compendium to be brought to the country for exhibition. This initiative aims at a symbolic restitution, giving voice and contemporary identity to the Indigenous peoples of the south.
A journey to the south
Before arriving in Puerto Montt, the exhibition was presented in Santiago and later in Castro, Chiloé. After its run in the Los Lagos Region, the exhibition will continue its itinerary to Punta Arenas. This version is more concise than the one currently presented by Filantropía Cortés Solari (FCS) at PHotoEspaña 2025 in Santander, Spain.
In addition to the photographs, the exhibition includes ethnographic material, sound recordings, audiovisual pieces, and sensory elements. Francisca Cortés Solari, Executive President of FCS, stated that “these images not only have historical value. They allow us to connect and reconnect with our identity—who we were and who we still are. Today more than ever, we know that conservation must be multidimensional, and that includes a cultural dimension that recognizes our ancestral knowledge.”
The Puerto Montt Cultural Corporation highlighted the inclusion of the exhibition in the 11th edition of Enfoto. Mario Barrientos, Interim Executive Director of the organization, noted that “Gusinde’s work speaks to us from the past and offers a privileged window into the ancestral memory of the Fuegian peoples. We believe in the decentralization of culture and in the right of people in the south to access visual heritage of this magnitude.” The curatorship emphasizes the image as a vehicle of memory and the relationship between body, territory, and spirituality, where elements such as the sea or the moon are understood as forces with active agency.
